Xavier Aubuchon-Mendoza's blog

Some libraries, such as in Casa Grande, AZ, welcome teens accessing MySpace – and have seen a corresponding rise in young adult circulation. Other municipalities have nearly had to close their doors from 2pm-5pm to prevent teens from disrupting the library, since the staff had no way to manage or direct them.

Keeping up with the material and technical demands of your Public Access Computing stations can be difficult, particularly for “accidental techie” librarians and those on a tight budget. In our interviews, we’ve found a number of ways librarians have used to handle this – an interesting variation being contracting for machines, software and support in one bundled package which is meant to ease all of their problems.

Reduced funding for technical assistance is a reality for many libraries, even as increased demands are placed on them. Even small branches are being faced with greater demands to care for their own infrastructure. Still, nobody can be expected to become an expert overnight, so what can be done to help libraries learn to help themselves?

One system in the Texas panhandle has devised an innovative plan for walking their branches through this process.